"When plans for the Brooklyn Museum's building on Eastern Parkway were conceived in 1890, the borough was still its own city; it wasn't until 1898 that the five boroughs would be united into the New York City we know today. Brooklyn's leading figures were determined that the city should have its own great public institutions, and the late 19th century saw the planning of not only the museum but also the Brooklyn Botanic Garden—as well as the expansion of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. By the time the museum (designed by McKim, Mead, and White) opened, however, the city had changed, and much of Brooklyn's cultural life would long sit in the shadow of Manhattan. Still, the Brooklyn Museum remains to this day a grand institution with some important collections, most notably of Egyptian art and American decorative art, not to mention an unusual niche: the Sackler Center for Feminist Art, whose most important work is Judy Chicago 's Dinner Party (1979). The museum sits next to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Prospect Park, two other landmarks of the borough that you'll want to explore if the weather cooperates when you head out to Grand Army Plaza."